The Beothuk Saga

by Bernard Assiniwi

  As soon as it was light enough to see, he got up, rolled his caribou skin and tied it tightly. The voices he heard must have been dreams, he thought, because he was certain he was alone in this strange land. He pulled on his leggings, threw the caribou skin over his shoulder, and walked back towards the beach, where he had left his tapatook and the rest of his provisions. Hunger gnawed at his belly. He had taken only a few steps, however, when he suddenly stopped. Directly ahead of him, a short distance from shore, was a huge Bouguishamesh tapatook with the head of a monster on the bow. Inside were many men running back and forth, their heads barely visible above the sides of the craft. He looked anxiously to where his own tapatook was hidden; it was still there, but two Bouguishamesh with hair the colour of dried grass were examining it, gesticulating and shouting to each other. Guttural sounds came from their mouths. Anin could not understand what they were saying. He stood stock still; it was as though his body and clothing had become the colour of rock, and he could blend into the landscape while observing these strange beings with their pale skin and grass-coloured hair. They were tall, at least a head taller than he was. Were the Bouguishamesh giants from another land? Or was it Anin who was from another land, and this was the homeland of these strange creatures? He wanted to show himself, to make their acquaintance, to try to communicate with them and learn more about them. But without really knowing why, he held back.

  One of the beings walked towards the huge tapatook in the bay while the other one lifted Anin’s, as if to see how heavy it was. Then he picked it up, placed it in the water, and climbed into it. Immediately the tapatook began to rock, and the Bouguishamesh fell into the water. He let out a terrible cry that made Anin tremble to hear it. The other being ran over, and seeing his companion in the water, began to laugh. Then the first man began to laugh, too, and pushed the tapatook back up onto the beach.

  “They laugh like we do,” thought Anin. “They do not become angry. They react as we would when something goes wrong. Perhaps they are friendly. But they are very big.”

  The two men with hair the colour of dried grass walked over to the large tapatook and began calling it. One of the men on board stopped moving about and answered in a loud voice, as though he were angry. Then the head of another man came out of the belly of the tapatook. His hair was the colour of fire, and he had a band of some soft material tied around his forehead. The man with the fire-red hair jumped into the water and began wading ashore towards Anin’s tapatook. The two on shore ran behind him and had almost caught up with him when Anin heard a loud shout behind him. He jumped and turned around: a giant was running straight for him. Its hair was in braids, like those Anin had seen on the Ashwans when he was a youth, except these were the colour of dried grass. Anin ran to his tapatook to get his bow and arrows and his fish spear. He jumped to one side in time to evade a swipe from a grey club swung by the giant Bouguishamesh, but he slipped at the base of the cliff and a second blow from the bidissoni tore off a strip of skin as big as a hand from his right thigh. Pain seared up his leg, but the young initiate managed to grab his spear as he fell and jam its handle in the sandy soil. The giant ran at him like a bear charging to protect her cubs, and impaled himself on Anin’s spear. He gave out another loud cry.

  Without looking back, Anin clambered like a rabbit up the cliff, leaping from rock to rock. When he reached the top, he dashed into the woods and hid behind a fallen tree to see if any of the other Bouguishamesh were following him. Their tapatook looked empty. He heard loud voices calling out words that he could not understand. Silently, Anin stole back down to the beach. When he reached the body of the red-haired giant, he placed a foot on its chest and pulled out his spear. The voices were becoming louder, and Anin knew he had to act quickly: he could either run back into the woods or try to get his tapatook into the water and paddle out to sea. He did not like his chances on the water because the Bouguishamesh also had a tapatook, and so despite the pain in his leg he climbed back up the rock face and ran into the spruce forest. Once in the familiar labyrinth of trees, he circled back along the shore in order not to stray too far from his tapatook. He hoped to tire his pursuers, but he did not want to have to make another tapatook.

  3

  For three suns Anin ran through the forest, always in great pain. The trees here seemed to him much larger than those near the village of his people. The beings with the pale skin and hair the colour of dried grass were still following him, but he was young and agile, and his endurance allowed him to go many days without eating. If he were weaker, they would have caught him long ago. His thigh throbbed, causing him great suffering; the wound, which had bled freely as he ran, had turned an ugly, dark colour that worried him. At the setting of the third sun, he decided to stop and clean it despite the beings that were chasing him. He spent some time searching for the marsh plant that grew between the season of thaw and the season of cold and snow, and whose secret properties he had been taught. This plant, which had purplish leaves and looked like a man standing up, collected water in its base, and insects would drown in the water and the plant would feed on them to nourish itself. Anin finally found a slight depression in the ground with caribou moss growing in it, and the plant he was looking for grew there also, fertilized by the moss. He picked as many as he had fingers on one hand, because they were still quite young. Using a round stone, he crushed the plants in the hollow of a tree and made a paste. Then he applied the paste directly to the wound. At first he felt a coolness in his leg that soothed the pain, but then the wound began to sting until it became almost unbearable. He knew he had to endure this burning until the wound was cleansed and purified by the juices of the plant. The fever travelled up his body to his ears; he felt as though his face was on fire. Suddenly he felt weak and began to vomit until his stomach was completely empty. Then, exhausted, he lay down on the ground beneath a large white spruce and slept through the warm, humid night.

  When he woke up, it was still dark and he was cold. He trembled like a leaf in the wind. He slapped himself all over to warm himself, then he got up and jumped from one foot to the other. His wounded leg was swollen, but the pain that had been so intense the day before was gone. But as soon as his body was warm, his hunger returned. It had now been three suns since he had had water or anything to eat but the shiny leaves of a plant with small red berries that gave strength but did not fill the belly.

  The sky was bright with stars, and Anin could see his immediate surroundings. He was still in the small hollow; the ground beneath him, a thin layer of soil over rock, formed a kind of water reservoir, which was why he had found the purple plant growing here. At the edge of this depression, the white bark of the birch trees leapt brightly out of the darkness. Anin smiled: he could ease his hunger. He walked to the edge of the hollow and, using his flint knife, cut himself a large slice of birchbark. He scraped off the tender inside of the rind to make a sort of paste, which he chewed carefully, swallowing the juice and as little of the pulp as possible. His mouth felt coated, as it did when he ate the bitter acorns from the hardwood tree that looked like a man with many arms. He knew that he had to drink, and he found some rainwater that had been trapped in a small cavity in the rock.

  By the time he had finished his meal, the sky had paled into morning. With his knife, he cut several young birch and oak shoots with which to make weapons for hunting. His bow and arrows were still in his tapatook, and he had nothing but his knife, a few thorns for fish hooks, and a length of cord made of braided grass. He had lost his caribou skin when the giant had attacked him. He had to get another one and he needed to find a sheltered spot before the season of cold and snow arrived. Somewhere close to the sea but still in the forest, where he would be protected from the wind but still able to find food and build himself another tapatook. A traveller without a tapatook was a poor traveller indeed, and had only clams and other castoffs from the sea to eat. When the cold hardened the beach sand and the sea covered itself to stay warm, the unprepared traveller died.


  It took him longer than three suns to make a bow, and another three to make as many arrows as he had fingers on both hands. By then the cold had settled in. Already he had to get up several times during the night to put more wood on his fire in order to preserve what little warmth his body produced. Each morning he longed for the sun to warm him and let him accomplish the work necessary for his survival. To get food, he set rabbit snares and deadfalls for the larger animals. He caught suckers with a noose suspended from the end of a pole. He also fished in a nearby river, catching enough for his daily needs as well as for the cold season to come. He made flour from the inner rind of birchbark, which he dried on rocks placed near the fire, ground with a round stone on a flat stone, and then baked into bread. He also made frames for snowshoes, then began making a new tapatook with the bark left over from his bread-making.

  He killed two wood caribou to give himself a cache of meat and also for their skins, to make clothing. With the hides from their legs he made leggings and sleeves for himself. He made a loincloth with skin from their backs, then sewed the remainder together to make a heavy blanket, softened, as was his clothing, with oil from the feet of the slaughtered animals. The oil also made them waterproof. Finally, Anin killed Mamchet the Beaver. He ate the meat and used the tendons to string his snowshoes. For nearly a whole moon he worked from sun up to sun down preparing himself for the cold season. Then the snow began to fall, heavy and quiet. The season of cold and snow arrived at about the same time that the wound on Anin’s thigh shed its last scab.

  It was time for Anin to go back to the great water, carrying the provisions he had accumulated over the past moon. The forest could provide him with some of his needs, but not all of them, and if he were to continue his voyage around his people’s land, he could not leave the shores of this water, because it was only by following the shore that he could return to his point of departure. He began to portage his things to the great water, following the course of the brook that would lead him down to the shore of the sea. Since he knew he was in high country, and that the brook must therefore run swiftly to the sea, he did not drag his tapatook but carried it and his goods on his back. The descent took him two suns, carrying only his tapatook, his hunting weapons, and enough provisions for the return journey. When he came to the great water, he stopped and studied the horizon for a long time, making sure the big Bouguishamesh tapatook was nowhere in sight. When he was certain that he was alone, he continued down to the shore. The cold-season tide line was high, almost up to the trees at the edge of the valley. He could not waste much time finding a good spot to build his winter mamateek. He had to give up the idea of constructing a mamateek of birchbark, because it was already so cold that the bark would be frozen to the trunk of the trees and it would be difficult to cut off pieces large enough for a shelter. He therefore decided to make a different kind of shelter, leaning fallen spruce trees up against one another and interlacing their boughs to form a roof. With one of his snowshoes, he covered the whole shelter with a thick blanket of snow. Only the very top was left uncovered, to allow smoke to escape during the long, cold nights ahead. Two more suns passed while he worked on the shelter. Then he took as many suns as he had fingers to move the rest of his food and other items that he had made during his convalescence.

  He had had to build a temporary shelter halfway between the shore camp and his forest camp, a place where he could spend the night during the two-sun portage. When he climbed back up to his forest camp, he carried nothing but food for four suns. But since it was uphill, he had to stop more often than when he came down. When the portages were finished, the snow had fallen as deep as his knees and the true cold had set in for the rest of the cold season.

  Time passed slowly. The season was neither colder nor snowier than in preceding years. When his meat supply began to run low, he climbed back up to his forest camp, and for five suns hunted in the land of Kosweet the Caribou. When he found a whole family, he chose the youngest so there would be no meat left over to spoil when the season of thaw arrived. He took his time on this trip because, in the cold season, it was important to save his strength, so that when it was good hunting weather he would not be too sick or weak to take advantage of it. He also enjoyed the milder climate in the forest, sheltered from the wind and softened by the warmth of the trees.

  One day, as he was descending towards the sea, dragging his provisions behind him on a large piece of birchbark, he saw Gashu-Uwith drinking calmly from a stream that ran near his midway camp. Anin stopped in his tracks, not wanting to startle or annoy the creature. Despite his growing suspicion that the bear was his spirit protector, Anin could not bring himself to trust it. The bear raised his head and sniffed the air. He turned towards Anin and let out a low growl, then sat back on the ground, boldly blocking Anin’s path. Gashu-Uwith was enormous. Since he was so close to Anin’s temporary camp, Anin simply sat down in the snow too, and took out his bow and arrows, just in case.

  The two beings remained in this position for a long time, watching each other closely and sniffing each other’s scent. The bear particularly noticed the smell of fresh caribou meat. Neither of them moved, and the sun’s light began to diminish rapidly. Anin did not like the idea of sitting there in the snow all night, wide awake, watching Gashu-Uwith sniffing the air, because the thought had come to him that Gashu-Uwith was probably still awake because he was hungry. He stood up slowly and, untying the caribou hide that was covering the meat, took out a large piece and walked with it towards Gashu-Uwith. The bear did not move. Anin stopped a few steps in front of him, tossed the piece of meat down, and backed away. Gashu-Uwith leaned over, picked up the meat in his teeth, then stood up and walked off along a path through the deep snow into the forest on the side of a steep hill. Anin watched him retreat. The bear stopped, turned towards Anin and growled softly before disappearing around the hill. Anin lit a fire, cooked himself a piece of caribou meat, then unrolled his new caribou skin and went to sleep. In the morning, he continued his journey down to his winter camp on the edge of the great water.

  The rest of the cold season passed without incident, and the weather began to warm and the snow began to melt as the sun’s strength returned. Only a few patches of snow remained here and there among the rocks and in the shadows of the trees. The largest pieces of ice, thrown high on the beach by waves, lingered in the shadow of the cliffs when the tide went out. Anin added to his store of dried meat, carved two new paddles, and tied his pack to the centre thwart of his new tapatook. One morning during the melting season, when the sun was just waking up, he left his cold-season camp and paddled into the setting sun. He continued in that direction for several suns, then turned his tapatook in the direction from which, every season-cycle, the coldness came.

  4

  Partly because of his heavy load, but mostly because of the strong current that came towards him from the direction of the cold, Anin’s progress was slower than usual. He passed many islands of ice that floated into the sun and did not melt, and he was greatly impressed by them. “I would not like to live on an island that moved,” he thought. “How would I know where the good fishing places were, if the island kept moving all the time?” And then he laughed as he realized that these islands probably shrank as the warm season advanced, getting smaller and smaller from bird-hatching time until they disappeared altogether.

  Suddenly his attention was drawn to a large flock of gulls on the horizon, directly ahead of him and circling just above the land. He told himself that there must be a deep bay hidden behind the rocks that tumbled out into the sea. He must continue with caution. His experience with the belligerent Bouguishamesh had taught him a lesson. He angled in towards the shore and continued paddling closer to land. As soon as he rounded the first tongue of rock he saw a sort of inner bay, protected by a second point of land that was empty of trees but less rocky than the one he had just passed.

  He slackened his rhythm and kept his paddle in the water in order to make as little no
ise as possible. From time to time he stopped paddling altogether and listened. He heard shouting and laughter that seemed to be coming from children or young girls. The closer he approached the point of land, the more clearly he could hear the voices. He tried to determine how many there were on the far side of the point: he counted all the fingers on both hands and thought that was about half the number.

  He did not round the second point, but landed his tapatook on a small beach of coarse sand littered with algae and enormous fronds of seaweed. Bending down to make sure his knife was still fastened to his leg, he quietly took his spear from the bottom of the tapatook. His idea was to climb the low hill between himself and the voices to see what was on the other side, but first he glanced behind him, out to sea, to satisfy himself that the Bouguishamesh were not on his heels. Then he slowly made his way to the top of the embankment.

  What he saw froze him in his tracks, and his skin became like the skin of a bird when it has been plucked ready for cooking. The scene before him was exactly like many he himself had participated in when he was a child; it was as though he had returned to his own village as it had been many years before. Except that his own village had had nothing comparable to this calm, sheltered bay. Here, just below him, several youngsters were digging in the sand with sharpened sticks, turning up clams and other shellfish and tossing them into a basket. When the basket was full, one of the older children carried it to the head of the bay, where a group of adults was gathered around a fire. The adults were cooking the clams on piles of heated seaweed. Anin heard one of the older children shout something he almost understood, and the others dropped their sticks and ran toward the fire. Then the older child handed each of them an opened clam, and they all began to eat.